


I Should Have Known Again, But Here it Goes Again

by orphan_account



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, jesus this took way too long to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3947062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Fake AH Crew AU where every time a heist fails, Geoff or someone resets the timeline to try again (with future knowledge).</p>
<p>He thought he would be able to keep them alive forever, but there are some things even a time traveler can't change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Should Have Known Again, But Here it Goes Again

**Author's Note:**

> For dragonastra on tumblr. Sorry it took so long. Title is from Here it Goes Again by OK Go

He leaned back in his chair, taking in the plans that were laid out on the board. The room smelled like expo markers and he could hear Michael talking a little too loudly to Ryan about their roles in the heist. They were getting the vehicles, holding off the cops for as long as possible. His apartment was alive with voices and sounds, making sure to cover the long silences and cold, lifeless eyes that stared up at him as sirens filled his ears-

He shook his head vigorously. _No, Geoff,_ he reprimanded himself, _they’re alive. You’re alive. Everything’s fine._

The ice made small tinkling noises as they hit the sides of the glass he held loosely in his hand. He took a long drink, savoring the taste of alcohol as it raced down his throat. He felt someone walk up next to him and he twisted around, seeing Jack standing there, his eyebrows drawn together.

“You alright?” he asked, only half caring. Jack glanced down at him, a small smile flickering across his lips.

“Yeah. Just looking over the heist.” There was silence between them, the usual noises of his apartment building filling the space once again, reminding him that they were all still there. It seemed like he needed the reminder more and more often, seeing as they had been dying more and more often. He swallowed hard, shaking the images from erased timelines and could be’s and shouldn’t be’s out of his head.

He heard glass breaking, Gavin swearing, and Michael laughing. It sounded like someone was taking a shower in the other room and Ray was curled up silently on the couch, playing his DS. They were all alive, all safe, and he would make sure they stayed that way.

“Hey,” Jack finally said after a while, “Do you… think it’ll work out? The heist, I mean.”

Geoff rolled his eyes. “You mean as well as all the other ones have?”

“No,” Jack said slowly, “I mean… do you think we’ll all make it out safe this time? No do overs?”

“Honestly? Probably not.” Geoff got up and faced Jack. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to reset at least five times for you assholes.”

Or ten. Or twenty. But Jack didn’t need to know that.

Jack looked him up and down, no hint of humor in his tone. This meant a lot to him, and Geoff gulped, knowing whatever he was about to ask wasn’t going to come with an easy answer. “Does it ever bother you?” he asked, “That you’ve seen people die that are still alive today? That you’ve apparently seen all of us die countless times?”

“Yeah,” Geoff murmured quietly, not quite willing to continue this conversation. It wasn’t like his… ability wasn’t common knowledge among the Fake AH Crew but that didn’t mean he liked talking about it. He remembered back when he thought of it as a gift, back when his life wasn’t so complicated and the worst thing that came from his ability was a botched kiss between two teenagers who had no idea the trouble they would get into later in life.

He remembered the first time he used it to save his crew, he remembered being flung from the boat and breathing in water as panic gripped his chest, panic at the thought of not being able to save them because he would be dead, drowned and rotting at the bottom of the lake, only to open his eyes to the wall of his bathroom, the shower spilling cold water over his shoulders.

Usually, he didn’t have much control over when or where his ability activated. Sometimes he would wake up, ready for the next day, only for it to be a rerun of the day before, keeping quiet as the same scenes as before ran by. Sometimes he would be shot back a few hours at random, making his perception of time as a normal progression screwed beyond reason, Jack yelling at him that no, it wasn’t noon it was three in the fucking morning, go back to sleep, Geoff.

Back when he was younger he thought it was a gift, something some higher power thought he should have. He thought it was fun to mess with people, finishing their sentences when they didn’t even know the end to them, replacing the sugar with salt, putting a bucket of water over the door (once he figured out how to do it right). Harmless things like that.  Now, though, he was fairly certain those same higher powers were punishing him for using his ability the way he did.

Bank heists, assassination attempts, arson, things outside of the law.

_Crimes._  

He never would have imagined that his life would end up the way it did, but he wouldn’t have traded it for anything. He glanced back at Jack, deciding not to properly answer his question. He would get another try later, if – when – the heist got out of control and they needed a reset.

-.-

He wasn’t sure how badly he thought the heist would go, but it sure as hell wasn’t _this_ bad. It never was _this_ bad.

Maybe a mortal injury, a breakup, the police catching wind of their plans before they knew they did and walking straight into a trap. It was always something he could see a way out of, something that, when he was flung back in time, he could prevent. The strings of time were always obvious to him, laid out in front of him to be messed with and fixed. It was one thing that could be changed that would tip the scales in their favor, something obvious that he could fix with a long talk or a loud gun. This time, though, he had no idea what to do.

For the first time in a long time he was lost.

His fingers turned white from the pressure he was gripping the radio. The _silent_ radio that had just been crackling with his boy’s voices. Their laughs and banter and momentary panic as things went south in an instant, the yell as they realized they were going to die, the single instant suspended in time, the one thread, cut off and they were gone. He could see where the helicopter crashed, just outside the safe house where they were supposed to meet. He could hear police sirens getting closer and closer.

He had no idea who was alive, who was suffering, pinned under wreckage or burning alive from the gasoline fire that was rapidly spreading off the docks. He didn’t know if Ryan had a part to play in the crash, he didn’t know if it was an accident, he didn’t know anything. All he knew was he needed to fix this.

His heart beat so loudly in his chest and blood roared in his ears that he never even processed the police pouring into the safe house, pointing guns at him and shouting.

When his ability activated, there was always a moment, just a split second, where everything seemed to freeze. This time it seemed to last a century, people frozen, bullets suspended in midair. He felt himself break as the world spun around him, and he knew the day was resetting, that he was going to get a second chance to make something better out of this, to bring his boys back. To make sure they would live.

The only problem was that he had no idea how he was going to go about it. He felt helpless, even with the knowledge of some possible future where his boys were dead or dying, where the Fake AH Crew had been captured or disbanded or something worse. Ironically, even the futures where he almost died didn’t hurt as badly as this one did.

As all of the times he’d tried this did.

-.-

He jerked up in the chair, feeling panic grip his chest. _Here we go again._  “You alright?” Jack asked as he walked up to Geoff. He seemed to understand in a second what was going on, as he always did. “Reset?”

Geoff nodded mutely, getting up and walking quickly to the bathroom. He shut the door – made sure it was locked – then let himself break down. His reflection in the mirror seemed to sneer at him, the soot and blood and burns of countless failed attempts staring back at him. _Why do I keep letting them die?_

He wasn’t being fair on himself, he knew that, but he couldn’t stop the vile thoughts that clouded his mind. Every time he tried to fix the heist something else would go wrong. Every time something went right something else crashed and burned. _Every. Time._ As soon as he thought he had it right it would crumble and he’d be back in his apartment, the usual sounds and sensations mocking him because, that’s right, _he’d failed again._

It never got easier, either. If anything, it just got worse. He had seen Gavin dead, burned, shot, killed thousands of times. The eyes staring up sightlessly at the sky always hurt, no matter if they were green, blue, or brown. Michael would go down screaming, a single bullet silencing him. He wouldn’t even know Ray was gone until he tried to talk to him, following him like a hawk when the day reset to figure out what happened. Jack would crash. It was always a crash.

The mirror didn’t show him anything he wanted to see, it didn’t give him the answers he was searching for, a way to get his boys out of harm’s way, so he grabbed the pistol shoved in his waistband and cracked it against the mirror, shattering it. The pieces went flying, cutting his hands and making him forget the pain for just a moment.

He composed himself and counted down, one, two, three…

A knock on the door echoed around the small bathroom, just like it had every other time. He opened the door to see Jack, concerned. “What happened, Geoff?”

“Nothing,” Geoff said, maybe a little too quickly. Something in Jack’s face shifted and not for the first time Geoff cursed the man for being so perceptive. Only about half the time he could get away with his resets, only half the time would someone not notice that he knew where to step, what to say before he should. He wasn’t sure if he was grateful for the halves they noticed or not.

“How many times?” he demanded, never being one to take Geoff’s bullshit.

This time, unlike all the other times, he decided to tell the truth. Just to see what would happen. It wasn’t like he was going to miraculously figure out how to fix everything on his own this time around. “Too many.” He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. It didn’t work. “You – everyone – I just can’t get it _right._ You’re all _dead_ before I can fix it all.”

He felt a hand on his shoulder and another on his face, a cloth held between the fingers. He hadn’t even realized he had been crying until Jack was talking, telling him it was alright, that they would figure it out, that everything would work out in the end, like it always did.

Looking back, Geoff hated the feeling of hope he got at those words, the feeling of momentary bliss as he allowed himself to believe that what Jack was saying was true.

Looking back, he decided he would have tried harder, if he’d gotten just one more chance.

-.-

It didn’t take long. At least, not as long as he thought it would. He felt the heat of the chopper as it exploded – again - into a cloud of fire and soot, charred metal and sudden silence. He had really thought he’d gotten it right this time, but with the twisted and blackened remains of his friends buried somewhere under the wreckage he guessed he hadn’t. The worst part about it was that he didn’t even really feel shock or anger or even sadness at it.

He just felt numb.

He didn’t have any tears left to cry, he didn’t have any more fragments of heart to piece back together by a reset, he didn’t have the will to keep going. He couldn’t look at them anymore, happy and alive and acting like they were going to live forever. He couldn’t look at their smiles when all they reminded him of was the countless, endless times they died and he couldn’t save them. The times when he took a reset over living with the pain.

It took less time then he thought it would for him to give up.

He closed his eyes tightly, flinching as the sounds that folded around him, the heat and the pain and the loss all layering into countless other timelines, other possibilities. He could hear them all, the times he’d failed. He remembered every single one of them, even if he insisted to Jack that he didn’t, that it wasn’t that big of a deal.

He had told them, once, what it was like for him. He had lied, of course, saying that the futures that could have been were always a blur, a strange mess of sounds and colors that he couldn’t make sense of, that he couldn’t quite figure out past what he needed to do to prevent them. He told them every time that they didn’t hurt him, that they didn’t feel like he was being shot over and over, that it didn’t feel like death by crashed helicopter would hurt less.

He remembered every time as clearly as the real timelines, the ones that he let happen. He remembered them like they happened yesterday, that blood gushing from Michael’s chest as a shotgun round sprayed through him had only been a moment ago. The pain was a wound that wouldn’t heal, and with every reset it only grew larger and larger. He was almost certain that someday he would bleed out from them, even if they were only metaphorical.

Sometimes he would wake up, panicked, because he’d forgotten that Ryan hadn’t decided to sell them out after all, that there was no assassin on their way to kill his boys because he’d already killed them first. He would forget where he was in the middle of the day, thinking it was another instance that was long prevented. A future only he remembered.

But he always fixed them, made them right.

This time, though, he couldn’t save them. This was the instant, the moment, that the universe said he couldn’t change. This was where the Fake AH Crew died.

He breathed in. Deeply, taking in the soot, the smoke. He felt the world tip around him, spin and crash and pull, as he was thrown back to some earlier time. He didn’t want to open his eyes as things settled, he didn’t want to face them again, he didn’t want to try again.

Geoff Ramsey, leader of the infamous Fake AH Crew, a ruthless criminal and feared by a city, his name whispered between bars as a way for freelancers to get a job, the LSPD shouting and shooting, trying to stop him and his crew, was beaten by something he had thought he was the master of for most of his life. Something he couldn’t fight, even if he had tried.

Geoff Ramsey was beaten by time. He was beaten by fate, by all that could be, all that couldn’t be, and all that had almost been.

He opened his eyes to see Jack, and he almost vomited right then and there, emotions and memories crashing through his head, ripping him apart from the inside out. He felt like he would have died right there had Jack not said something, anything to break the silence and flood of long suppressed memories.

“Hey, are you alright?”

And _fuck_ if he didn’t sound so young, didn’t look so young. _Was_ so young.

Jack stared at him, not understanding what was going through his mind. How could he? This was before he had ever told him about his ability, his curse. This was before the Fake AH Crew was formed. Before they knew each other, before Michael yelled at Gavin with the hatred and familiarity and companionship that could only come from years together.

This was before they all knew each other, before their crazy, dysfunctional family had been formed, before it had grown to the size it was, before everything seemed right in the world.

Before the failed heist.

Geoff swallowed, hard, and made a decision. One he regretted, one he hated himself for, but the one choice he knew would keep his boys alive. Even if he regretted it, he found comfort in the fact that it kept his crew alive, that they would be able to live their life long and lasting without him, without ever knowing what the future could have held for them.

He turned and walked out of the building, away from Jack, from Michael and Ryan and Gavin and Ray. He left, making the Fake AH Crew a fantasy that he and Jack had dreamed up over drinks and poker, never to be formed.

He left, changing fate and the Fake AH Crew’s inevitable demise on that one day in the future. He made sure they lived, even if the price was never knowing them.


End file.
